'Yes, madam,' answered Kelly deliberately. 'I do not think the streets are so unsafe as your ladyship supposes; but I should be sorry for them to fall into any hands but your own if by any chance footpads end my days to-night.'
He bowed and walked towards Rose Townley and her father, who stood in the doorway at a loss what to make of the scene. He had crossed half the distance before Lady Oxford moved. Then, it seemed with one swift step, she stood at Kelly's side.
'Mr. Johnson, you are my prisoner!' she exclaimed. 'My dear brocades! Mr. Johnson, you are surely the most attentive of men. You must tell me how they have been repaired; I shall not close my eyes unless you take pity on my impatience.'
Had Kelly been the man to care for triumphs wrested from a woman, he would have found his occasion now. A minute before, Lady Oxford's eyes glittered with menaces, her face was masterful; now, her eyes besought pity, her face was humbled.
'If your ladyship will permit me,' said Kelly, 'I will return when I have seen Miss Townley to her chair.'
It was a difficult moment for Miss Townley. For to those who looked on it seemed that by some means here was Mr. Johnson brought back into bondage before the very eyes of his betrothed. But Rose was patient of Lady Mary's lesson. 'Tomorrow give him his congé if you will; to-night be staunch! It is for life and honour!' She knew no more, but she was loyal. Wogan had seen men go, for the Cause, to a shameful death by torture. But he never saw courage so unfaltering, or loyalty so true, as this girl's. She was not herself in that hour; she had taken up a part as an actress does, and she played it clean, and played it through. To-morrow she might be a woman again, a woman wronged, deceived, insulted; to-night, with the astonishing valour and duplicity of her sex, she was all in her part, to see nothing, to know nothing, to be staunch.
To the smiles, the simpered sarcasms, the quizzing glances, she paid no heed. She said, with a simple dignity, to Lady Oxford:
'I will not keep Mr. Johnson long. It is but a few steps to your ladyship's door, where my chair waits for me,' and she held out her hand to Kelly. She had her reward. Kelly's face put on a look of pride which no one in the room could mistake. He took her hand with a laugh, and threw back his chest.
'I will return, your ladyship,' he said gaily, and with Rose passed out of the door. The whispers were stilled; the couple went down the stairs in a great silence. Rose bore herself bravely until she had stepped into her chair; showed a brave face then at the window.
'I shall hear of you from France,' she whispered. 'Good-night.'